Question No. 11
REPLY BY THE HON. MR. MICHAEL THOMAS, C.M.G. Q.C. ATTORNEY GENERAL
TO A QUESTION FROM THE HON. TAI CHIN-WAH
IN THE LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL MEETING OF 4 DECEMBER 1985
QUESTION
Could this Council be informed of the following:-
number of
REPLY
(a)
(i)
divorce cases and
(ii)
civil cases, other than divorce,
(b)
which involved the assistance of legal aid over the past five years; and
whether the Government has any plan to set up an advisory body to help couples with marital problems and to assist them to bring about reconciliation prior to the commencement of divorce proceedings?
Without searching individual case files, the precise
numbers required by the first part of the question are not
available. The best I can do is to give the number of Legal
Aid Certificates issued for matrimonial cases during the five
year period ending 31 December 1984, which was 8,453. The
corresponding figure for other civil cases was 17,246.
For the purposes of the question, the number of
certificates issued for matrimonial proceedings includes not
only divorce but also other family related proceedings.
/The Government
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